Dover has a new national swimming champion.

Sophie Waller, 12, returned from five days of competition at the British Gas ASA National championships at Sheffield with a gold and two bronze medals.
She is girls’ British National Champion for 200-metre butterfly in her age group.

Sophie, who is a pupil at St Edmund’s Catholic School and a member of Dover Life Guard Club, was swimming under the colours of the newly-formed East Invicta eXcel which is composed of the very best “performance” swimmers in East Kent.

She won bronze on the first day of competition in the 200 metres individual medley in a personal best time of 2.30.10.

Her second bronze came in the 400 metres individual medley clocking up another personal bestr time of 5.12.34.

But it was in the 200-metre butterfly that Sophie proved awesome. She took the heat by storm with a huge two-second personal best (2.26.43) to go into the final ranked first.

The final was a very tough race and Sophie led for the first 50 metres. By the 100-metre point she had slipped to seventh place, but Sophie showed the class of a true champion as she fought back to take the gold medal with another personal best time of 2.25.70.

Coach Tim Hyde said: “Sophie’s performance was a fantastic testimony to her commitment and training over the past year."

Full story in next week's Dover Mercury.